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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25757161">The Answer of Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_kade/pseuds/alex_kade'>alex_kade</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Immortality, Love, M/M, Romance, Soulmates, deep discussions, my god i love Immortal Husbands, nicky and joe being cute, nicky being all wise, nile being curious</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:41:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,178</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25757161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_kade/pseuds/alex_kade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nile wonders how the hell Nicky and Joe have stayed together for so long. They've clearly unlocked the secret to true love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>328</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Answer of Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have watched The Old Guard probably an unhealthy amount of times by this point, and I have no regrets! This is my first full Old Guard fic. Just some conversation but it called to me to be written.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nile couldn’t keep the fond smile off her face as she watched Nicky and Joe bantering playfully at each other. </p>
<p>“How do you do that?” she couldn’t help but ask. </p>
<p>“Do what?” Joe stopped flinging popcorn at his partner as he turned his warm grin onto her, Nicky settling immediately at his side to politely allow the shift from play to real conversation.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Stay in love? Most people these days can’t last ten years, and that’s if they’re lucky. You’ve been in love for literal <em> centuries</em>. What’s the secret?”</p>
<p>Joe chuckled and turned to Nicky, eyes lit up in humor. “I think centuries <em> is </em> the secret. Any argument we were going to have, we’ve had it. Any differences that might come between us, we’ve already worked them out. Maybe relationships are easier when you’ve started them with murder and worked your way backwards.”</p>
<p>Both Nile and Nicky couldn’t help but laugh at that, but when Nicky sucked in a breath to speak, everyone calmed. The man had a certain way of delivering words that softly, gently demanded an audience, a natural storyteller casting his spell over eager ears. Where Joe could speak passionate poetry, Nicky could spin philosophies into galaxies, brilliant in their beauty and their ever-eternal depth. On the subject of love, Joe would happily fill his heart until it burst with the beliefs of Nicolo di Genova.</p>
<p>“I think,” Nicky began, and paused for a moment to find his words. “I think love in its truest form is something that must be earned, something that requires such a deep understanding of the self that it is nearly impossible to achieve in a single lifetime.”</p>
<p>“So you’re saying Joe is right?” Nile shook her head in argument. “I mean I get that a lot of couples don’t make it, but there’s still a lot who do. They figured it out in only one lifetime.”</p>
<p>Nicky’s features softened, but his eyes nearly sparkled with the understanding of a patient teacher who was about to enlighten an enthusiastic student. It was one of Joe’s favorite expressions on his lover, an eagerness and a joy to be sharing his years of knowledge with a younger generation. It was enough to make Joe almost forget there once was a time when this gentle soul had been taught to force knowledge upon others with a cruel blade and words spat in insult.</p>
<p>“How do you know they’ve only lived one lifetime?” Nicky pressed, a smirk touching one corner of his lips. “As much as I believe in God—”</p>
<p>“You still believe in God?” Nile interrupted, her hand unconsciously reaching up to touch the cross always at her neck.</p>
<p>Nicky gave her a minute nod. “I do, but not in the same way I used to. What I wholly believe in is the soul, and that one cannot find love until they have a complete understanding of what their own soul looks like, what drives it, what holds it together, what tears it apart. If one doesn’t understand their soul, how can they expect to find another that resonates with it?” He reached his hand out to grasp Joe’s. “Yusuf and I were lucky. We were blessed to live through the same years of growth and discovery together, to learn about ourselves and one another in the same moments.”</p>
<p>“And it was no love at first sight fairytale,” Joe pointed out, squeezing Nicky’s hand at the shared memories. “It took a long time to find ourselves.”  </p>
<p>“Decades.” Nicky turned back to Nile, stressing the importance of the time. “We knew we wanted to be together, but it still took decades of chiseling away at the teachings draped over us by our families, our mentors, our religions that shaped us into the people they wanted us to be. We had to sift through it, take the time to shed all that was not truly a part of ourselves, stand completely exposed before the other; and only then could we see that our light inside was the same.”</p>
<p>He reached out to press his hand against Joe’s chest, who covered it firmly with his own, eyes glistening with unspoken words of adoration. They had lived far long enough where words were appreciated, but no longer necessary to express what they felt for one another.</p>
<p>Nile watched the two of them, thinking on Nicky’s viewpoint for a moment before she spoke up again. “And everybody else? The ones who aren’t immortal like us?”</p>
<p>Nicky turned back to her quickly, his expression one as if he’d just been jerked back from a good dream but not overly bothered by it. “They make the same journey, but instead of one lifetime, they do it in many.” He explained this as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Two, seven, twelve, fifteen lifetimes—if one is patient enough and wants it badly enough, they will discover their true soul and thus their soulmate eventually. It is only a matter of listening to the whispers of the past, taking the right steps towards the person you are meant to be.”</p>
<p>“That just sounds like your conscience,” she parried lightly, still not quite ready to wrap her head around the concept that Nicky was laying before her.</p>
<p>He merely smiled wider and leaned forward, eyes narrowing just a fraction in challenge. “But how does the conscience know what is the right and wrong path to put you on if it hasn’t already done it before? We all learn from our experiences, Nile. You’re just lucky enough to be one of the few who’ll remember all of yours.”</p>
<p>With that, he got up to head for bed, Joe following without releasing his hand and shooting Nile a little wink as they passed. They wouldn’t be sleeping yet, but Nicky wanted to give her time to mull over everything in silence. She would need it, Joe thought. Nicky’s words had a way of burrowing into the brain to make a person rethink just about anything.</p>
<p>And Nile <em> did </em> think, pondering over past lives and true love, wondering who she might have been before she was the person she saw in the mirror now. She wondered too if she hadn’t already met Nicky and Joe and Booker and Andy and maybe even Quynh once upon a time, or maybe even several times, and if that wasn’t what had driven her to them now. Maybe some part of her <em> remembered </em> and had led her straight to them, had told her to fight for them even when she'd hardly known any of them. Maybe her soul wasn’t stripped down to its purest core just yet, but maybe it was close enough to find her way to the people she resonated with; and maybe, after a few more decades of her own, she would find a love that was as unbreakable as Nicky and Joe’s. </p>
<p>Or maybe, with this family who had taken her in without a single doubt that she belonged, she had already found it. </p>
<p>
  <em>La fine </em>
</p>
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